By Mak Mun San, Cheryl Tan and Tan Yi Hul

Such a breeze to use

VivoCity
1 Harbourfront Walk
The wide ramps and ample lots in this carpark make parking so easy, even on weekends. Its sensors are accurate and there are LED signs everywhere indicating how many lots are left and in which direction.

One tiny quibble: Individual carpark lots are a slight squeeze, especially for those driving bigger cars. Easy on the pocket

IMM Building
2 Jurong East Street 21

This carpark is a dream - you do not have to pay a cent for the first three hours. It is only $1.07 for the fourth hour and 30 cents for blocks of 15 minutes after that. Three hours should be more than enough to run some errands, enjoy a meal at a restaurant and do some shopping.

Even if you want to spend up to five hours there during weekends, the parking fee is just $2.27. A similar trip to another neighbourhood shopping centre, AMK Mall in Ang Mo Kio, will set you back $5.10.

Sure, free parking means it is busy at peak hours, but with over 1,500 lots, you can usually find a place eventually.

Danger ahead

Bugis Junction
200 Victoria Street
They did not call it Bugis Junction for nothing: The junctions in this carpark are the ones where the adage 'look left
and right before crossing the road' applies.

Entrances on both sides of the carpark are across pedestrian walkways, so drivers and shoppers must be alert.

The interior is brightly lit and relatively spacious, but you get the feeling that lane directions were an afterthought.

Cross junctions in the carpark are hazardous because cars converge from various sides, and if you do not stop when you are supposed to, watch out for a right-angled collision.

Paragon Shopping Centre
290 Orchard Road

The danger lies in accessing the carpark itself. There is only one entrance along Bideford Road. Take a left turn off
Orchard Road or come down straight from Orchard Link.

Taxis also take this route to the cab stand there.

During peak hours, this causes traffic jams. Cars coming straight down from Orchard Link have to cross a big stretch and are usually caught at the pedestrian crossing at the change of lights, or stuck in the middle of Orchard Road, blocking main traffic.

If you are turning left off Orchard, there is usually a line of cabs also waiting to round the corner.

Parkway Parade
Shopping Centre
80 Marine Parade Road

Watch for oncoming cars when turning up and down the ramps. The carpark is built in such a way that drivers are
not aware of oncoming cars when they move from one level to the next until the last minute.

This blindspot means that cars moving in the opposite direction come very close to either hitting or scraping the sides of each other if they are not careful.

Drive slowly and avoid hitting the bends as if you were a Formula One car racer. Keep strictly to your lane and you will save yourself the heart attack of having to jam on the brakes every time you reach the next carpark level.

Ngee Ann City

391 Orchard Road

The road leading into the carpark is a confusing bustle of activity at all times of the day. There are cars dropping passengers off on the left, taxis picking up passengers on the right, pedestrians using the zebra crossing and an endless stream of cars waiting to enter the carpark.

Things move along fairly quickly though, thanks to the three carpark gantries.

Leave MPVs at home

Shaw House
350 Orchard Road

The good thing is, it is one of the few carparks before the dreaded ERP gantry in town.

The main gripe: horrendously narrow lots, especially corner ones at a 90-degree angle.

Also, getting in and out of the car, assuming you have managed to park it at all, is a problem.

The inconsiderate or those with no spatial perception simply straddle their big cars across two lots.

Some carelessly park their cars too close to one side, making the other lot useless. This is a common sight at
Shaw.

The Cathay
2 Handy Road

The tight turns onto the carpark ramps to reach the upper floors are a nightmare.

You have to keep your eyes peeled on the precarious corners and slowly inch your car up and down the ramps
to avoid leaving bits of your paintjob behind.

This also means you have little room to manoeuvre, so be prepared to do a quick reverse. Go for a wide turn so that it is easier to position your car onto the ramp to the next floor.

If you are driving a small to medium-sized car, keep a distance from the big car in front. It will need some reversing space.

Please give me a compass
Suntec City Mall

3 Temasek Boulevard

The Suntec City carpark is a maze. Not only that, drivers have to memorise the combination colour code, alphabet, number and the animal that the management has assigned to its different areas.

There are leaflets to help you remember where you have left your wheels. But if you don't spot these glossy sheets of paper at the sides of pillars, get ready to be confused.

Marina Square
6 Raffles Boulevard
This huge carpark, which services a mall and hotels such as Pan Pacific, Marina Mandarin and Mandarin Oriental, is easy to get lost in.

The signs and colour-coding help, but the carpark also has numerous corners, zones, lanes and junctions, and you are apt to drive around in circles for a bit.

And if you forget where you parked your car, it's unlikely even a compass can help.

Don't trust technology

Downtown East
1 Pasir Ris Close

The carpark has electronic sensors to indicate which floors have the most number of empty lots. And each lot has an individual sensor that turns orange when it has been filled and green when it is empty.

But some sensors were faulty and indicated an empty lot when it was already taken.

Raffles City Shopping Centre
252 North Bridge Road

With a high-tech Parking Guidance System in place, parking in this popular carpark should be relatively easy. But when LifeStyle visited, one of the electronic signs was not functioning properly.

It indicated there were 12 lots available, but despite doing two rounds, there were actually no empty lots.

Dazed and dizzy
Plaza Singapura

68 Orchard Road

If the lower floors are full, you will be taken to dizzying heights, literally.

The carpark prides itself on its electronic counter that shows how many vacant lots there are on each deck. So when the deck is full, you continue spiralling merrily upwards.

And if you are coming down from the highest decks, get ready to go round and round every complete deck before you hit bottom, because that's the only way out. Not for the faint-hearted and those in a hurry to get home.

The Central
6 Eu Tong Sen Street

Don't drive here with a car if you are prone to car-sickness and migraines or a mum-to-be. A drive up its impossibly winding and steep carpark, which starts at the fifth level, is guaranteed to make you feel like throwing up.

The gaudy colour scheme doesn't help: the left side of the wall is bright orange, while the right side is green. To make matters worse, the walls are full of distracting arrows and in-house advertisements.

The drive down is just as bad. With the tight space and sharp angles, inexperienced drivers may imagine they are F1 racers and go faster than they really should.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on August, 31, 2008.

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